In conveyors, it is customary to align one or more lines of products in single file when bringing them to a packaging station.
The products may be touching each other or may be spaced apart by a predetermined distance.
It is also customary for the products to be guided by passages delimited by walls along the sides, and for their bases to rest at least partially on a movable bed. The movable bed may be implemented for example as one or more conveyor beds or as a moving belt.
There are various known methods for creating batches of products out of a line of products accumulated in single file. For example, a movable stop can be provided on the conveyor, such as a stop bar, which allows a predetermined number of products to pass by at regular intervals. A lateral pusher could also be provided on the conveyor, which laterally shifts a row of products containing a predetermined amount of products, the amount depending on the length of said pusher.
Once the row of products is isolated (via the stop bar or pusher system), a gripper head can capture the batch of products, which is possibly then packaged in a box. Some gripper heads even allow creating multiple batches of products from a predetermined amount of captured products. Such a gripper head is, for example, described in document FR 2,974,573.
The disadvantage of the pusher is that it does not allow isolating several batches of products at the same time when the products are arriving on multiple mutually parallel corridors.
When properly placed, stop bars can be used to create multiple batches of products arriving in mutually parallel corridors. However, this solution is not adaptable, as it only allows stopping the flow of lined-up products at regular intervals in order to remove a predetermined amount to form a batch of products.